


bought by judgement of the eye

by Leyenn



Series: Kinktober 2020 [16]
Category: Stargate - All Media Types, Stargate SG-1
Genre: Bondage, Erotic Photography, Established Relationship, Female Friendship, Gags, Kinktober, Kinktober 2020, Lingerie, Multi, OT3, POV Female Character, POV Outsider, Photography, Relationship Reveal, Secret Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-20
Updated: 2020-09-20
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:02:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26554033
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leyenn/pseuds/Leyenn
Summary: Janet finds Sam's secret stash.Prompt: lingerie.
Relationships: Samantha "Sam" Carter & Janet Fraiser, Samantha "Sam" Carter/Daniel Jackson/Jack O'Neill
Series: Kinktober 2020 [16]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1911157
Comments: 10
Kudos: 18





	bought by judgement of the eye

Sam's dashed out unexpectedly to the store when Janet hears her laundry finish, and since she knows where most things go in Sam's house it passes the time to head down and retrieve it. She folds the towels and returns them to the bathroom closet, then makes a neat pile of the rest and takes it through to Sam's bedroom. She leaves it on the bed for Sam to put away later, and she's turned to go back out of the room when something new catches her attention.

Sam's pretty tidy – motorcycle parts notwithstanding – so the carelessly open storage box on the side table is a surprise. It's pretty, like something Cassie might choose to give her; black but decorated with silver patterns and a blank white label on one side. There's a plain silver lid tossed on the floor and the box is full of slim volumes that fit neatly inside, spines facing up, the first one pulled out and propped half-open on top of the rest.

There's no title, and the cover is plain. Mildly intrigued, Janet flips the front page the rest of the way open.

It's not a book. It's a photo album, one image to a page, and the first one is of an obviously female body wearing a sheer corset – a body she knows even without a face, one she's examined countless times for new scars, stowaway symbiotes, anything out of the ordinary.

This certainly counts for that.

It's obviously either a bad or an unintentional shot – the angle is odd, cutting off not only the face but one arm and ending at the top of a naked thigh, and it's close in, slightly out of focus. It's the kind of image that happens when a camera goes off accidentally. 

The next one is not.

If she didn't know already that the first picture is of Sam, this one would tell her. The same pale pink ribboned corset and matching ribbon-edged panties, the same freckled shoulders, but this time the photographer is at least two steps back and Sam's looking right at them through dark lashes with her bottom lip caught between her teeth, one arm stretched up to rake fingers through bed-mussed hair and her back arched enough to strain the satin across her breasts. It's overtly, over-the-top sexual, as if she's imitating a GQ model, something she can safely say she's never imagined Sam doing.

The next few shots are the same, a flip-book of this other Sam writhing across white sheets on a wide bed in various poses, all with that intently sensuous expression. On her back with both hands over her head; cupping her own breasts through the corset; one hand tugging at the ribbons with the other between her legs –

Janet flips that one over as fast as she can, her cheeks flaming. 

The last photo stares up at her.

The lingerie is the same, the sheets are the same, but this Sam has been caught in a fit of laughter so obviously bright and carefree that it shines off the paper. She's not looking at the camera but somewhere behind it, and there's an emotion in her eyes that's missing in all the other shots.

Whoever took these pictures, Sam obviously doesn't just trust them. She adores them.

There are other albums in the box, and Janet knows she shouldn't. She _knows_ she shouldn't. Looking at one lying about is one thing, but deliberately going through more is prying, without a doubt. But the way Sam looks in that last picture – who is it in her life that she looks at like that? She hasn't mentioned anyone at all, and surely it's pretty serious if she's keeping photographic evidence around.

None of the albums are labelled: they're all the same thin, plain book style, some just slightly different colors to the rest. She takes out the next one, a dark red cover, and flips it open.

Sam's kneeling on the same bed, in a matching set of black satin bra and tight satin shorts, the bra padded and low-cut enough to expose a cleavage Janet has to admit is damned impressive. It's simple, very Sam, decorated only with a hint of red lace here and there.

This time there are almost two dozen pictures, less posed and more candid, as if this is just something Sam does – lounge around in blatantly expensive lingerie and chat to someone who occasionally snaps some pretty decent photographs of her half-naked body. Some still make Janet blush and flick past – a close-up of Sam from above with her head tilted back, smiling wickedly, fingers peeling back the lace edging of her bra – but still, they're all of her. No hint, not even a hand or a reflection of the mystery artist behind the scenes.

Janet slots the dark red album back into place and on a final whim, runs her finger along the spines of the box. Only about half of the albums have actually been used, but that still feels too far over the line to look through them all. Instead she tells herself, if there's nothing in this one, and pulls out the last full album.

She immediately wishes she hadn't.

It's Sam, but not a Sam in pale pink on virgin-white sheets, or even looking wicked and mischievous in black and red. This is…

She's lying on dark sheets, or a dark blanket – on this bed, the bed right behind Janet, the angle is wide enough to see that – and she's not looking at the camera because her eyes are closed, a slight frown creasing her brow. Her lingerie is a tiny black thong and a corset shaped to leave her breasts completely bare, both delicately embroidered in dark green thread - but this time that's not all she's wearing. At all. 

There are black leather cuffs around her wrists and ankles, attached to the bed frame above her head and below her feet. A black leather collar around her neck, inlaid with green velvet, with a single O-ring in the center. A gag in her mouth, not a makeshift thing but a ball held in place with a strap behind her head. Her back is arched a little, just the suggestion of movement against the restraints, and there's finally someone else in the picture – a single hand, large and probably male, fingers spread on Sam's naked thigh from an angle that can't possibly be the person behind the camera –

"Janet?"

 _Shit_. If she puts the album back quickly enough, if she puts everything back how it was, maybe she can pretend she didn't just commit a horrible invasion of privacy – if she just pretends she didn't see, or only looked at the first picture – 

"Hi," Sam says, sticking her head around the door. "What're you doing in here?" 

She's not defensive, just curious. As if Janet could have a legitimate reason to be standing in Sam's bedroom rifling through an explicit record of... whatever this is.

"I… laundry," she says, weakly, gesturing to the bed. Sam glances over.

"Oh, great, thanks." But she frowns slightly when she looks back. It's not the same frown from the photo, but it makes Janet burn with embarrassment anyway. "Janet? You okay?"

If only she could pretend, but she can't. It's cowardly, and impossible, because she's seen it now. She's seen this secret version of Sam Carter, the Sam this mystery person apparently knows, and she knows she won't be able to get the whole thing out of her head.

"Who's your photographer?" 

Sam looks, instantly, at the box on the table. Something like chagrin crosses her face. "You looked at those?"

She wants to make an excuse, but she can't find one. There isn't one. "Sam, I'm so sorry. I don't know why I – I shouldn't have, they're obviously private –"

"It's okay," Sam says, quicker than she could possibly expect. "I left them out earlier, I must have forgotten."

"I still shouldn't have pried," she says, desperately apologetic, flushing red. Sam's eyebrows go up.

"Ah… how far did you look?"

"Pretty far," she says, throat hot. _Far enough to see how far you go._

 __"Ah." Sam reaches for that first album. Her fingers rub across the cover, as if she's lost in memory for a moment. "Um, well. I mean, you've seen more of me in the infirmary, so…" She slots the album back into the box and picks the whole thing up under one arm. "Come on, I'll make us some coffee."

Janet thinks she'd probably prefer spirits at this point, but she's not going to say no.

She watches Sam puts the box down on the kitchen island, and it sits there between them as Sam makes a full pot of coffee. In broad daylight beside the telephone, on top of a stack of mail, as if it's not full of images of her half-naked, draped across someone else's bed or handcuffed to her own...

Sam pours two mugs and puts one down in front of her.

"Daniel," she says. 

Janet doesn't get it: actually looks around, as if Daniel's suddenly walked in without her noticing. "What?"

"The photographer." Sam's still blushing, but with a tentative smile that's even a got a hint of pride. "He's quite good, isn't he?"

She stares at Sam. At the box. At Sam. 

" _Daniel_ took these?"

Sam nods. "Most of them, yeah."

"Daniel… Daniel Jackson? Our Daniel?"

Sam laughs. "Yes. Is that hard to believe? He's always taking pictures for work. Usually of drier subjects, I admit, but he knows how to handle a camera."

"These weren't for work," she says, because shock has obviously made her senseless. Sam bites her lip, a fresh blush rising in her cheeks.

"Well, no." She takes a sip of her coffee, both hands cupped tightly around it. "He had the camera at home, I don't remember why. We were fooling around, he took a picture, and it was fun, so we figured…" She shrugs. "Why not?"

"You were fooling around." Janet's not sure what her own face looks like right now, but she might be beyond shock and into something far more incredulous. "With Daniel. In your lingerie."

"At his apartment," Sam adds, eyes sparkling over her mug, as if it's important to be clear on that vital detail. "Yeah."

"You're…" She isn't sure what to try and call it. It doesn't mean they _have_ to be sleeping together, or dating, or anything other than what's visible in those photos – Daniel accidentally seeing her in sexy underwear and having fun by taking a few snapshots. Even Daniel agreeing to photograph her bound and gagged with that mystery partner – he'd probably do even that, if he knew she really wanted it…

Except for that look in Sam's eyes, in that one picture. 

That same look she has now. 

She reaches for the box before she can think too much about what she's doing, pulls out the first album and flips open the back cover. "He took this one," she says, not quite a question, and Sam's smile becomes something soft and far away.

"Yeah, he did."

"You love him," she says, absolutely certain.

Sam laughs gently. "He's _Daniel_. Of course I love him."

"I mean –"

"I know," Sam says, still with that same smile. "So do I."

She thinks about Daniel – sweet, funny, caring, too passionate for his own good and even more intelligent than that. He's a perfect match for Sam – hell, she's even thought it herself, and she knows she's not the only one. What's a surprise is she can imagine him taking these pictures, too, which is something she really wouldn't have thought before.

"So he took them, but he hasn't kept any of them…?"

"For… himself, you mean?" Sam arches an eyebrow, suggestively, amused. "I can just about explain away having a box of erotic pictures of me. There's no way Daniel could. And you _know_ how regularly his place ends up cleaned out by the SGC." She shrugs a little. "Besides, it's not really about the pictures. It's the experience of taking them that's fun."

Janet tries to line up _fun_ with that last photo and can't quite get there, but if Sam says so...

That last photo. The third person who couldn't be Daniel, or at least couldn't be behind the camera while Daniel touched her.

"If Daniel took most of them," she says, wondering if she can handle the answer even as she asks it, "who took the rest?"

Sam glances down, blushing all over again, and gives her a look that's nothing so much as abashed and maybe actually apologetic. "Ah… Jack did."

Janet stares at her. Thinks about that hand, in that picture. Broad and male, skin tone to match Sam's, confident in touching her when she looked like _that,_ even if it was Daniel Jackson right there in the room taking the photo.

"Jack," she says, slowly. "Jack O'Neill."

"Also, better with a camera than you'd expect." Sam's smiling again, too, even through her obvious embarrassment, and that soft look hasn't left her eyes. 

" _Colonel_ Jack O'Neill."

Sam runs a finger along the edge of the box and stops at an album with a plain grey cover. She pulls it out, flips it almost to the end, and holds it out.

The first photo is Sam leaning back on her hands on the foot of her bed in pale grey lace: a plunging bra, high-cut panties and lace-topped stockings held up by a delicate lace garter belt, smiling happily into the camera. The second is Sam further back on the bed, one knee raised as if she's pushing herself backward, laughing at something off to her left.

The third is Daniel, kneeling on the bed in only a pair of dark grey briefs tight enough to see _everything_ , with a look on his face that would tell her clearly who's behind the camera even if Sam hadn't. Half the SGC sees Daniel look at Jack O'Neill like that on a daily basis, a very distinctive mix of deep affection and the long-suffering impulse to throttle him.

It's a good picture, she has to admit. Daniel's an attractive guy, as fit as any of the military guys on base, and O'Neill's captured him well - but not nearly as well as the last photo in the book.

This time it's of them both, Daniel cross-legged on the bed with Sam on her knees, straddling his lap. He's holding her against him with gentle hands, one under her thigh and the other on her back, his fingers splayed against the lace back of her bra. Sam's wrists are lightly crossed behind his neck and she's smiling toward the camera with that same softness in her eyes, while Daniel gazes up at her with a look of pure, unguarded devotion.

She can see why Sam would keep this, even though that's probably a risk she shouldn't run. It's beautiful, powerful, a frozen moment in time that seems to jump out beyond just the glossy paper it's printed on.

"Wow," she says, for lack of any other appropriate reaction, and Sam laughs.

"Yeah, believe me, I know. Surprised the hell out of me, too. I never thought I'd be so lucky, but somehow I get to have them both."

"They love you," Janet says. Both because she's known that much for years, and because she can see it – right here, as visible in these photos as if they were actually in the picture. The way Daniel knew exactly when to capture her laughter that first time; the way O'Neill perfectly framed her and Daniel together in that frozen moment. Even the way she looks tied up and gagged, how Daniel managed to depict the confidence of O'Neill's hand on her and the vulnerability of that moment, and the fact that she trusted either of them to see it at all.

The camera is just the eye of the beholder, and this entire thing is just Sam through their eyes.

Sam takes that last album back in both hands with a smile, her thumb running absently up the spine. "I know." 

"You're a lucky woman," Janet says, with a grin and a great deal of sincerity.

Sam grins back at her. "Oh, I know that too." 

"They're good pictures," she says, because it's true. They're not professional, but they're not far from it. Maybe it's just for the one subject… or two… but Daniel has an artist's eye for composition, O'Neill's maybe a little more intense but no less compelling. 

"You think so?" Sam pulls the box over to sit in front of her and starts to put those few albums back in place. "I mean, I like them, but I've never shown anyone."

Who would she have shown, Janet thinks, but she can't say anything other than the truth. "You look amazing, Sam."

A blush colors Sam's smile, but it doesn't look like embarrassment this time. She looks back at Janet, one hand resting lightly against the side of the box. "I spend all day in uniform being one of the guys, and I _love_ that. I work hard for that, and I love that they see me that way, you know? But knowing they see me like this, too, it's… well, kind of exhilarating, to be honest."

She can easily see how it could be. Sam is one of the most capable soldiers and most brilliant scientists in the world, but she's also a beautiful woman, inside and out, who's Janet's best friend. She deserves to have both, more than anyone Janet could possibly think of.

She doesn't even try to stop the heat rising in her own cheeks again when she makes the suggestion. She just gets the feeling that this is something Sam wants to share, a part of her life that makes her happy, and she shouldn't have to hide that away in a black box of secrets. "I only looked at a few. If you wanted to show me..."

Sam's eyes light up with surprise. "Really?"

"Sure," she says, moving their empty mugs out of the way. Sam gives her a stunning smile and takes out the first album again.

  


* * *

  



End file.
